I'll have it know that I regularly beat my wife, at Scrabble AND Trivial Pursuit.

I'll give Boazy credit for practising what he preaches in this case, however he demonstrates perfectly the weakness of his hermeneutics-for-dummies approach.

That myth was collected by Boazy's namesake, the anthropologist Franz Boas, early last century, and was famously subjected to structural analysis by influential French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss half a century later. Anthropologists have been arguing about what it means ever since, but as far as I'm aware none has advanced quite as trite an interpretation as

<< Meaning="When life sucks-The spirits will save us" >>

If Boaz's pretensions to expertise in textual analysis weren't so obviously buffoonish they'd warrant serious intellectual attention. As it is, they provide the usual mildly amusing entertainment and schadenfreude that one expects from the village idiot.

However, there are evidently some deluded souls who are predisposed to take his cartoonish interpretations of Muslim myths seriously, which is of course why some of us persist in correcting his more egregious excesses.

Hi CJ..in good 'play the man' form as usual :) bless you.

While I completely accept that anthropologists are still arguing about what it means, they would be doing so I'm sure on the basis of the whole thing.
Now.. I analyised it in terms of 'the plain language' and the dominant themes.
If you were not so ...nah..I won't go there :)

Ok..back the themes AS contained in the myth, are limited.

1/ Life goes badly.
2/ Villagers seek help elsewhere
3/ A stranger with a 'spirit related' name suddenly appears
4/ That stranger provides for them and
5/ Enables them to go on living.

Gee...thats how the animists I know would read it. (and I know plenty) Back to undergraduate school CJ:) "cheese" happy?

Now.. CJ. with your background, you should know that u don't have to make something more complicated than it is. I'm sure you also know how animistic societies work, I went too far with my first attempt by using the term "rightly related" to the spirits. But then, on a re-think, I excluded that and limited it to the text. I did not say it was 'the' interpretation.. I simply had a go, and that's all I'm asking of you folks.

PERICLES.. well done. So glad you went as far as to look up the Greek.
I'm afraid though, that your attempt to 'embarras' me didn't work.

I have no idea how you look at the Greek manuscripts and decide "There is no concensus".. that statement itself must be explained.
No concensus on...WHAT? That every word should be identical?

There are very small differences from some manuscripts and it might be worth a dabble into textual criticism ourselves here.
Oliver picked it up (from external reading though)that Mark has brought together MALACHI 3:1 and ISAIAH 40:3.

Now..some of those greek Ms say "according to the prophets"
"en tois prophetais" The one adopted in the NIV has 'Isaiah'

Based on these facts, which do you think would be the more likely original?
Does it change the message?

All,

Is Mark a Myth or a Legend. What class of literature are we interpreting? Or is it up to us, the naive, to put our own stamp on it? Is there not a danger having a priesthood interpret for us?

"... legend is somewhat simpler than a myth. A legend is “an unverified popular story, ” apparently with sufficient entertainment value to survive through the generations. A myth, on the other hand, has more weight and probably more antiquity. It is a traditional story originating in a preliterate society, dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serve as primordial types in a primitive view of the world.”

"Or, alternatively but equally telling, it is a real or fictional story, recurring theme, or character type that appeals to the consciousness of a people by embodying its cultural ideals or by giving expression to deep, commonly felt emotions.” - Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park. Paul Schullery, Lee Whittlesey (2003, University of Nebraska Press

cont.

What about Genesis, why in the West does it have standing above a thousand other creation stories? Boazy, are the other creation stories of equal merit to genesis?

I know I am not addressing Mark, here, in the latter part of this dual-post, yet, with creation stories, it is easier compare with other... realities? legends? Myths?

It seems to me, Christians will defend a proposition, as literal, until cornered, then, all-of-a-sudden, what was literal has always been known to be an allegory, not to be taken literally. Re-invention.

A grew-up in a lapsed Catholic household and occasionally went to church. We were told of the truth of this amazing Shroud of Turin. When the scientists proved it a fake, the Vatican announced the Church had held The Shoud forged, since the Middle-Ages: And I didn't see any Anglican clergy pointing this out in a critique of JPII.

If it is historically known that Herod was dead when Jesus was born and that there was no Roman census at the time, should the stories does stay in the Bible as a legend or myth? From reading Mark, how do we know these events happened? I am pretty sure that Julius Caesar was assassinated. Can we be so certain of Mark 1.1-1.4?

If its known to be wrong, why not tear the very pages from the Bible!

Knowledge has always been the Great Enemy of the Churches not an Anti-Christ, knowledge re-assigns authority and reasoning from the priesthood to the laity: And so it should be.

All,

Is the myth or legend borrowed/stolen? The Word was as it meant be read or spoken?

Regarding comparing Babylonian and Genesis 1: 1-5 accounts:

"The Masoretes who vocalized the Hebrew text could have decided the case in favor of the independent clause by vocalizing the opening preposition with a [unprintable], or in favor of the alternative by vocalizing the verb as berð. By doing neither the one nor the other, they ambiguated and thus enriched the opening five words of Scripture, suggesting what may have been a traditional syntax for an epic's beginning, and yet permitting us to hear the far grander apodictic tones of an unqualified assertion." - Poetic Readings in Biblical Beginnings. Contributors: Herbert Chanan Brichto (1998) Oxford University Press.

Boazy in particular, but all,

"Heidel (p. 101) confesses that day and night, already existing at the time of Apsu's revolt, are not part of Marduk's acts of creation. As for the illumination required to have daytime, he derives "the emanation of light from the gods" from "the radiance or dazzling aureole which surrounded Apsu." This figuration of a warrior's halo blinding and terrifying his enemies is so frequent in cuneiform writings as to be a cliché. How seriously this item should be taken as analogous to the creation of light in Genesis 1 we may glean, for example, from Sennacherib's boast that his own halo caused his royal Babylonian adversary to urinate in his chariot. Item [4], the creation of the biblical firmament, would be the first correspondence to an act of creation by Marduk, wherein--presumably--both heaven and earth were created by Marduk's splitting of Tiamat like a shellfish, the former corresponding to the upper shell and the latter to the lower shell." - Poetic Readings in Biblical Beginnings. Contributors: Herbert Chanan Brichto (1998) Oxford University Press.

Nonsense? What about Eve being created from Adam's Rib?

Think I am posted-out for a day.